The Warlord and His Gun Factory
“Armed force is the backing of justice.” That was Chinese warlord Yan Xishan’s motto. For decades in the early- and mid-20th century, Yan ruled Shanxi province, fighting both for and against fellow warlords, the nationalists, the communists and the... Read more
How a Lone Polish Cadet Rampaged Through German Panzers
We tend to impose narratives on history, seizing on compelling legends and streamlining complex... Read more
The U.S. Navy Is Struggling to Grow
In late 2016, the U.S. defense establishment arrived at a consensus: with just 275... Read more
Israel Has an Air-Launched Ballistic Missile
Two Israeli companies together have tested a new, supersonic air-launched ballistic missile with a... Read more
The Full Scale of Chicago’s Gun Violence
It was a scene played out over again and again on Chicago’s West Side.... Read more
American weapons makers have dominated the global arms trade for decades. In any given year, they’ve accounted for somewhere...
The Fictional Nuke Film That Won the Oscar for Best Documentary
This story originally appeared on May 29, 2015. It’s a little after 2:00 p.m. in Kent — an English...
The Forgotten Tale of How Allied Bombers Chased a German Sub to Its Doom
In June 2018, Spanish media reported that divers Anxi González Roca and Eduardo Losada and naval historian Yago Abilleira...
The U.S. Navy Is Re-Arming for Surface Warfare
In 2016 the U.S. Navy possessed just one surface-launched anti-ship missile type — Boeing’s Harpoon, a munition that first...
‘Threads’ Is One of the Most Horrifying Films I’ve Ever Seen
This story first appeared on May 5, 2015. In the basement, a few days after the bombs dropped, Ruth...
New Spy Drone Flies Non-Stop for a Month
Airbus’s Zephyr solar-powered drone flew for 25 days straight during a test-flight over Yuma, Arizona beginning on July 11,...
Texas Megachurch Preaches the Power of Drones
This story originally appeared on Aug. 25, 2014. The video opens on a birds-eye view of a city through...
Britain’s New Spy Planes Are Practically Spacecraft
A version of this story originally appeared on Aug. 22, 2016. In July 2018, Airbus Defense & Space announced...
Play the Pentagon-Funded Video Game That Predates ‘Pong’
This story originally appeared on July 27, 2014. Before Call of Duty, before Mario and even before Pong there...
The Stoner Arms-Dealer Is Back
In the summer of 2018, a federal administrative tribunal that presides over disputes between contractors and the government rendered...
In 2013, Fake News Claimed Barack Obama Tried to Nuke South Carolina
A U.S. nuclear bomb exploded off the South Carolina coast after U.S. military leaders refused an order by Pres....
In the 1980s, the Pentagon Was Desperate to Avoid Nuking the Middle East
In a secluded section of MacDill Air Force Base, four miles south of Tampa, Florida, is a building once...
How to Find a Missing H-Bomb
This story originally appeared on April 20, 2015. When a routine Cold War operation went terribly wrong, two planes...
The Legacy of Infinite War
Raids by U.S. commandos in Afghanistan. I could be talking about 2001 or 2018. A U.S. drone strike in...
B.Z. Gas Rendered the Enemy Too Irritable to Fight
This story originally appeared on Oct. 27, 2014. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact...
